American Tall Tales Read online

  They all pulled on their bright-red shirts and rainbow suspenders. Then they rolled out their old fire machine, Lady Washington. The machine was hardly more than a pump. She had no engine or horses to move her along, so Mose and his men grabbed the old pumper by her two wooden bars and began lugging her through the streets to the fire.

  As Mose and the other volunteers clattered over the cobble-stoned streets of old New York City, they ran past the steamboat pier.

  They ran past horse liveries and wooden shanties.

  They ran past soup houses, pigsties, roosters, and ragmen.

  They ran past newsboys crying, “Papers, one cent!”

  They ran past oystermen lowering their traps into the Hudson River.

  They ran past chimney sweeps, and women shouting, “Apples for sale!” and nurserymaids pushing carriages.

  But suddenly the firemen came to a halt. A horse-drawn trolley was stopped in the middle of the road, blocking their path.

  “Move! Fire!” Mose cried.

  “I can’t! She’s stuck!” the trolley driver shouted. “One of her wheels is caught between the tracks!”

  “I’ll take care of it, boys!” Mose shouted to his men. He quickly unhooked the horses from the trolley car. Then he rolled up his sleeves and placed his huge hands under the trolley. Grunting and groaning, Mose lifted the crowded car slowly into the air—until he held it with just one long arm over his head, like a waiter carrying a tray.

  As the trolley passengers screamed, Mose staggered across the street, then slowly set the trolley car down. After he dusted off his hands, he returned to his fire machine. Once again the group of volunteer firemen took off, racing through the streets of old New York toward the black clouds of smoke billowing into the sky.

  Hundreds had gathered on Front Street to watch the burning tenement building. As soon as Mose’s fire company arrived, he shouted, “Move out of the way!” The crowd quickly parted as the volunteers lugged their pumper to a hydrant.

  After Mose hooked up the hose, a team of sixteen men began pumping the long handles on either side of the machine, to build up pressure to form a jet of water.

  But suddenly a woman ran toward the volunteers, screaming, “My baby’s on the third floor!”

  “Hold the nozzle, boys,” Mose said, handing the hose to his men. He grabbed his fire ladder. But when he threw it against the tenement, he discovered it wasn’t long enough to reach the third-floor window.

  “Bring me a whiskey barrel!” he cried.

  When someone brought him the barrel, Mose set the ladder on top of it, then started to climb. The crowd screamed as the ladder swayed left and right.

  Mose climbed to a window on the third floor. Then, using his ax, he hacked the wood to make room to wedge his giant body inside. Just as he disappeared into the smoke and flames, the roof of the building began to cave in.

  “Nobody can escape now!” someone cried.

  Moments later Mose reappeared at the hacked-out window, coughing and covered with soot.

  “He’s alone!” the mother screamed. “Where’s my baby?”

  Flames engulfed the tenement as Mose held his stovepipe hat to his chest and started down the ladder. When the ladder caught fire too, Mose leaped into the air, still holding his hat.

  Mose landed on the ground, jumped up, and moved quickly out of the way as the tenement collapsed.

  The crowd rushed toward him, but Mose pushed them back and shouted, “Where’s the baby’s mother?”

  When the sobbing woman stumbled over, Mose reached into his big hat and pulled out a tiny, crying infant.

  “Oh, thank you!” the woman cried as she hugged her child.

  “Just doing my duty, ma’am,” Mose said.

  The volunteers returned Lady Washington to the fire station, and when she was safely put away, Mose resumed his seat across the street at the Paradise Soup House.

  “Don’t forget about that plate of pork and beans, Mac,” he said. “Make it a large piece of pork, and don’t stop to count the beans.”

  Mose Humphreys was famous all over New York City. Boys and girls would follow him everywhere. He could cross the Hudson River with two breaststrokes, and with six he could swim all the way around the island of Manhattan.

  Mose’s laughter caused the tenement buildings to sway as if in a storm. And when he was angry, his shouting sounded like a trolley car rumbling over the rails. If his old neighborhood gang, the Bowery Boys, got into a scrape with their rivals, the Dead Rabbits, Mose immediately came to the rescue. Once, when the Dead Rabbits wrecked the Bowery Boys’ headquarters, Mose ran after the vandals, hurling huge paving blocks from the sidewalk. He even hurled lampposts before his anger cooled.

  But most of all Mose was known as the city’s most valiant volunteer fireman. He and his men lugged Lady Washington to fires all over the city—in shanties, mansions, theaters, horse stables, soup houses, and butcher shops. He walked through flames as if he were made of bricks, rescuing bankers, bakers, shoemakers, dressmakers, parlormaids, politicians, gamblers, actors, and tiny little babies.

  Though Mose was never paid for his work, the city took good care of him. Soup houses fed him barrels of milk and coffee, bushels of oysters and potatoes, and huge amounts of pork and beans. Ragmen gave him their best garments. Bowery shoeshine boys shined his gigantic hobnailed boots for free.

  But one day, quite suddenly, Mose Humphreys discovered that his city didn’t need him as much as it once had.

  He was playing cards and smoking his cigar at the station house when the city alarm bell started going off.

  “Fire! Fire! Turn out! Turn out!”

  “She’s at the docks, boys!” Mose shouted to his men. He could tell the location of the fire by the number of bell strokes.

  Mose and the other volunteers pulled on their suspenders and bright-red shirts. Then they grabbed Lady Washington’s wooden bars and started hauling the pumper through the streets.

  When they arrived at the docks at the end of Houston Street, they found a huge crowd cheering and screaming. Above the crowd a great arc of water was cascading down onto a burning warehouse.

  “Get out of our way!” Mose shouted as his men tried to push through the crowd to a fire hydrant.

  But the hordes of people didn’t pay much attention to Mose and his men. They were too busy cheering the shiny new horse-drawn steam fire engine that was rapidly putting out the fire.

  “Look at that!” a newsboy shouted. “It takes only six men to work her!”

  As Mose peered over the heads of the crowd, he saw that indeed the boy was right. One firefighter was stoking the steamer’s shiny brass chamber with coal, one was tending to her elegant black horses, and the other four were aiming her mighty hose at the roaring flames.

  “Out of my way!” Mose shouted.

  “Don’t worry, Mose, she’s under control,” an apple seller called to him cheerfully. “Your old pumper’s no match for that machine.”

  Mose was so angry, he began pacing back and forth, huffing and puffing. As he paced, he listened to the newsboys and fruit sellers.

  “The mayor says they’ll be all over the city soon.”

  “Yep. He’s hiring professional trained firemen to run those fancy machines.”

  “Say good-bye to the old pumpers.”

  “Yeah, and the volunteers, too. Hey, look, the steamer’s put out the fire!”

  “Things are changin’ in this city.”

  As Mose listened to the newsboys, he started pounding his giant fist into the palm of his hand. He began rocking back and forth with rage. Then suddenly he grabbed the wooden handles of Lady Washington and began pushing her toward the river.

  “Chief, what are you doing?” one of his men cried.

  “Wait!” shouted the others. “Wait!”

  But there was no stopping Mose as he picked up speed and started running toward the end of the dock. He gave one last push, sending the old pumper over the edge of the dock.

  The
crowd heard a huge splash! as Lady Washington crashed into the Hudson River. Everyone was silent as Mose slowly turned around. He stared at his fellow volunteers with dazed eyes, then staggered away alone.

  Mose disappeared from his old haunts after that. Nobody knew for sure what had happened to him. For years folks speculated on his whereabouts. In soup houses, on steamboat piers, in stale barrooms, they asked, “Heard anything about Mose?”

  Sometimes folks answered, “Oh, didn’t you hear? He went west and made a fortune in the California gold rush.”

  “Oh, didn’t you hear? He’s driving a mule team in the Dakota territory.”

  “He’s leading a wagon train across the country.”

  “He’s part of the pony express.”

  “He’s working for President Lincoln.”

  But one evening, one of the old fire volunteers, playing checkers on a worn bench near the old station house on the Bowery, had this to say: “If you want to know the truth about Mose, pay attention to me. He’s among us still. I seen him hanging around lampposts on cold winter nights. I seen him sleeping in burned-out old tenements. I seen him walking along the foggy wharfs.

  “You could say Mose is the spirit of old New York. And when all them shiny new machines decide to break down, and when the city fire-alarm bell starts to ring again, watch out. Because by then, you know, that fireman will have grown to be at least twenty feet tall.”

  NOTES ON THE STORY

  THE LAST AMERICAN FRONTIER of the 1800s to be developed was the Great Plains. When thousands of pioneers crossed the plains, headed for the rich soil in Oregon and, later, for the gold fields of California, many complained that the land was without timber or rainfall and plagued with dust storms and grasshoppers. The land was so bleak that, in 1843, Senator George Duffie of South Carolina said, “The whole region beyond the Rocky Mountains, and a vast tract between that chain and the Mississippi, is a desert . . . which no American citizen should be compelled to inhabit unless as a punishment for crime.” (Of course, generations of Native Americans had lived happy, self-sufficient lives on the Great Plains, in harmony with the land.)

  In order to survive, the farmers who chose to settle on the plains had to rethink their ways of doing things—or come up with new ways entirely. One such farmer, Febold Feboldson, was invented by a Nebraska lumber dealer named Wayne Carroll. A series of tales about Febold were published in 1923 in the Independent, a newspaper in Gothenburg, Nebraska. Other yarns about Febold by other authors were printed in the Gothenburg Times from 1928 to 1933. And in 1937, Paul Beath collected a number of Febold’s deeds and published them in the “Nebraska Folklore” pamphlets. Beath’s yarns about Febold provided the basic inspiration for this retelling.

  After living on the Great Plains by himself for a year, a Swedish farmer named Febold Feboldson grew afraid that he might die of loneliness. As he watched wagon trains bump over the prairies on their way to California, he waved his straw hat and shouted, “Stay here! Live here!”

  But Febold always got the same answer: “No, thanky. We’re going to look for gold!”

  Instead of giving up, the broad-shouldered, sunburned Swede sat down and cupped his jaw in his giant hand and tried to figure out a way to make the gold hunters settle near him on the plains. In three seconds Febold came up with about a hundred great ideas. But the idea that made him do a little dance was this: order a thousand goldfish from Peru.

  Febold ordered the goldfish, and when they arrived, he dumped all of them in a lake near his sod shanty—the only lake on the whole prairie. Then the crafty farmer hid in the tall grass and waited for the prairie schooners to roll by.

  It wasn’t long before a small wagon train clattered over the hard-baked earth near Febold’s farm.

  “Look, look! Gold!” a pioneer woman shrieked when she saw something glittering in the sunlit lake.

  Febold grinned as the pioneers jumped off their wagons and charged across the prairie. From the tall grass he watched the pioneers dipping their pans into the water. They chattered like magpies, and Febold’s heart soared with joy. He saw wonderful times ahead, sharing his life with good neighbors.

  But as the pioneers panned for gold, the terrible dry weather of the plains began to get to them. It was so hot, they were soon forced to jump into the lake to keep from drying up and blowing away altogether.

  “Folks, this is a terrible place to live,” said Olaf Swenson, the wagon master. “It’s too hot and dry. It never rains. And we haven’t found any gold in this lake all day.”

  “You’re right, Olaf. Let’s move on to California,” said the others. With their tongues hanging out, they all ran back to the wagon train.

  As the pioneers climbed aboard their wagons, Febold saw his precious dream of having neighbors start to evaporate. Before anyone could say giddy-yap, he jumped out of the grass and screamed, “Wait! Stay here tonight, neighbors, and I promise you some rain.”

  A tall order, but Febold was desperate. He thought and thought, until he came up with about a hundred great ideas. But the idea that made him do a little dance was this: build a big bonfire beside the lake.

  The bonfire Febold built was so big and burned so hot that soon the water in the lake vaporized and formed clouds over the prairie. The clouds were so big and so heavy that when they rolled into one another, it started to rain. Buckets and buckets of rain!

  The problem was, none of the rain hit the ground. Why? Because the air was so hot and so dry that the rain turned to steam before it even touched the land. And what happens when steam and dry land meet? Fog. So much fog covered the plains that the pioneers couldn’t see a thing.

  “This is awful,” said Olaf, groping toward his wife, Anna.

  “It sure is. Let’s get out of here,” said Anna.

  But as they stumbled back toward their wagon, Febold shouted, “Wait! I’ll get rid of the fog.” Then he ran into his shanty and came out with a giant pair of clippers.

  The pioneers gaped as Febold snipped the fog into long strips. Then they watched him bury the strips in his field. When all the fog was buried, the rain from the clouds crashed to the ground! And everyone shouted with joy.

  But then a silly thing happened—a thin piece of the fog seeped out of the ground and wafted through the air. It looked just like a ghost, and when the clouds saw it, they ran away in fright—leaving the day right back where it had begun: unbearably hot and dry.

  “We can’t live here without rain!” cried Olaf.

  “Wait!” said Febold. “I’ll get more rain. Just give me a minute to think.” He cupped his large jaw in his giant hand and thought and thought—until suddenly he came up with a plan.

  “Noise!” he announced.

  “Noise?” asked Anna.

  “Didn’t you ever notice it always rains when there’s a lot of noise? Fourth of July fireworks? Parades? Battles? Outdoor dances?”

  “Well . . . ,” said Olaf.

  “And nothing makes more noise than frogs!” Febold said.

  The pioneers rolled their eyes at each other, but before they could say anything, Febold ran out into the fields, gathering all the frogs that lived on his farm. Thousands of them! Frogs of all sizes and dispositions!

  His plan was not as simple as it looked, though, for he soon discovered that frogs make noise only when they’re good and wet. So he grabbed one cheerful-looking frog and whispered in its tiny ear, “It’s raining, it’s raining, it’s raining.”

  Febold kept this up until he had completely hypnotized the frog. And when it started to croak, the others began to croak too, and soon every single frog was singing its heart out—and the rains came!

  As the rains fell, Olaf, Anna, and the others jumped for joy and cried, “Yes! We’ll stay on the plains and build our farms! Miracles happen in this land!”

  But disaster was just around the corner. The next day the pioneers discovered that they couldn’t get their fence posts in the ground because the soil was still hard.

  “If we can
’t fence in our properties, how in the world can we tend to our horses, cows, sheep, oxen, dogs, chickens, and children?” asked Olaf. “We can’t stay in this terrible place.”

  Oh, for goodness’ sakes, thought Febold. But he just smiled and said, “Wait. And I’ll teach you an old prairie trick.”

  He gathered all the pioneers together for a lesson. “This is how you make and keep postholes on the Great Plains,” he said.

  “One: Bore a bunch of holes in the hard ground. Two: Let the holes freeze all winter. Three: In the spring, before the ground thaws, dig up the holes. Four: When the frozen holes come out of the ground, slap coats of varnish on them. Five: Slip the varnished holes back into the ground. Six: Insert fence posts.”

  Well, you might say that this was the beginning of a true change of heart for the pioneers. They were so intrigued with Febold’s posthole procedure, they were willing to wait for winter to come to try it out. Before they knew it, Febold was teaching them how to make sod shanties with bricks of matted prairie turf, how to grow corn and wheat, how to plow the barren land, and how to fight grasshoppers, tornadoes, dust storms, and prairie fires.

  Olaf and Anna grew quite content with their new life. As they walked through the tall, whispering grass in the twilight, they watched the goldfish slapping the dark waters under the moon. They listened to the frog choruses practicing their rain songs. And they smiled at Febold Feboldson as he waved from his shanty and said, “Evening, neighbors.”

  NOTES ON THE STORY

  YARNS ABOUT PECOS BILL, “the greatest cowpuncher ever known on either side of the Rockies, from Texas through Montana and on into Canada,” first appeared in a 1923 Century Magazine. The author of the piece, Edward O’Reilly, wrote the “saga” of Pecos Bill by combining a number of western folklore episodes with the boastful, comic tall-tale language of heroes such as Davy Crockett and Paul Bunyan.